DAYSIDE GARDEN" Colorful choices for July garden

Updated: Friday, July 18 2014, 11:50 AM CDT

Color is hard to come by in the garden in mid July but the Escambia County Master Gardeners do have a few suggestions up their sleeves.

Kathryn Daniel; "We are here at the Dayside Garden at the Escambia County Extension Office up off of Stefani Road with Doctor Dave Mills. He has one of my favorites; I call this "Joseph's Coat", but I know that's not the official name."

Dr. David Mills/Escambia Master Gardener; "Yes, this particular plant right here, is usually referred to as Copper Leaf plant, an old heritage type plant, that's been in our gardens all over the United States as annuals. But in more southern parts and in subtropical areas, it's grown as a perennial. This particular one is called, "Acalypha Wilksiana". It's one of the original ones, and you can see it's got this beautiful variation leaf colors.

And in our area, in the heat of summer, with a lot of pest problems, we are a little bit short on the availability of the type of plants we might want to use to fill out our gardens.

This is an excellent one to choose from, not just necessarily this plant, but different textures and colors, we have a wide, wide palette to choose from. This is a good example right here. This particular variety is Magenta and Yellow, and it has big, beautiful leaves with texture for your garden.

And right over behind you, we have another one, and this one right here is called "Inferno." and you can see it has an upright texture to it and a nice red color that we are seeing right now and it's called Oranganta Bronze.

It has that beautiful, beautiful coppery color along the green leaves, but a much smaller plant that you can use a little bit closer if you're having this in a border garden. And a whole lot of selections here, they do very, very well in our hot, humid climate right now, and they are not bothered by too many pests except the grasshopper."

Kathryn Daniel; "That's good. Where should we put them, sun, shade, does it matter?"Dr. Dave Mills; "They are generally considered sun to partial shade plants. And by varying that you can get differences in the color of the leaves. That and soil will cause a difference in leaf color as well. So you can get a big variety in just one yard."